last friday one of my mini-dreams came true.

i got to see alison krauss and union station in concert, 

courtesy of m's birthday gift to me.

<3

she's been a favorite of mine for years, 

and the concert did not disappoint.

the entire performance was positively flawless.

and the chicago theater was amazing.

if i weren't an opera singer, i would definitely be 

a bluegrass singer and fiddler extraordinaire.

my 10 on 10

a few days belated, but i did attempt the 10 on 10 challenge hosted by rebekah at a bit of sunshine 

here are my photos. 

sometime soon i hope to be able to get a new camera and improve the quality of the photos i take!

my kind of town

as i was browsing through old photographs, i found these.

they were taken last winter.

it all of the sudden struck me how fabulous this city is.

this is my city.

 

 it's lovely, isn't it?

inspired

i keep looking at our guest room.  m picked the color, and it's sooo beautiful!  i knew i married the right guy.  :)  it reminds me of the markers i loved so much when i was a kid.

 

now all i can think about is how awesome a bohemian-ish patchy quilt would look on that bed.  now, when something that seems awesome pops into my head, i just can't get it out.  it literally consumes me. so i went ahead and made this little sample from images of different fabrics on fabric.com just so you could see what i'm thinking.

m would probably say it's too colorful, to which i would say,

"bah!"

Ladies and Gentlemen...

we have a living room.... well, sorta

see that couch?  that's the one piece of furniture we have (besides the broken rocking chair in the corner that is somewhat functional despite its brokenness) 

we inherited it from a friend (thanks, j!)

but the room looks beautiful, and someday when our budget is revived we will have quite a lovely room.

m and his friends did an amazing job.

Portrait

here we are in front of our new home

 

since school started again, we've taken a bit of a break from working on stuff inside.

our kitchen is in shambles a bit; i am working on painting the cabinets.

 everything from the kitchen back was painted a pukey apricot color:

 you can see the gaping hole in the wall where we removed a bulky cabinet:

(this still needs to be re-drywalled)

i love a vibrant color in the kitchen, so i painted the walls "china blue."

here is our kitchen from four angles:

 

 the eventual plan is to install an L-shaped counter-top, refinish the wood floors underneath the linoleum, and attempt to center the room a bit better against the small window on the east wall.

this will likely be a summer project.

Home Sweet Home!

 So here it is, folks... our starter home!

We have big plans for the exterior, as you may remember from previous posts.  We would like to paint the house a darker color, maybe blue or gray.  I can't wait to plant new bushes, with flowers!  And maybe make a beautiful stone flower bed.  *sigh* 

As for the interior, that project has already begun and is in phase 1:

If you haven't seen what it looked like before, here is a little photo from the house's original listing:

Doesn't it seem to say "RUN!  DON'T WALK!"  But we saw its potential.

The hideous wood paneling was the first thing we decided to say "hasta la vista, baby" to.  The beams on the ceiling were decorative, and in between them, the white sections of ceiling were cheap fake wood pieces, too!  So we ditched them.  (And by "we" I mean my amazing hubby and his overwhelmingly generous friends!)  I'm sure that with drywall, more subtle light fixtures and a nice, warm paint color the room will open right up and look beautiful!  Oh, and did I mention there are wood floors under the carpet?  Bonus!

Speaking of paint, I've been thinking about this A L-OT. 

For the living room, I really would like to paint the walls something neutral and warm but not yellow.  What do you think of this color?  It's called "Cozy Cottage!"

 

With white crown moulding, I think it would look modern and classy, warm and inviting.  

I'm pretty attached to a color like this for the kitchen:

White cabinets?  Maybe!

And for my music room (yes, I will have a music room!) I desperately want to use purple, but I don't know if I have the guts!

Updates to follow... giggle, giggle giggle.

The most exciting days of my life

1.) The day I was married.

2.) The day Jasper came home.

3.) The day Lola came home.

4.) TODAY!

"What is so special about today?" you may be asking yourself.  Well, today we closed on our house.  It is the day M and I got our first house.  I can't describe in words how blessed I feel; how overwhelmed with gratitude.  Reflecting on this past summer, <----(click for a refresher!) I am almost in disbelief that the horrid situation we were in as a result of been displaced from our home evolved into something so AWESOME!  We're homeowners now.  And we have Nancy to thank for it.  Pictures of our home will soon follow; as soon as I find the connecting cord that goes with my camera!  Until then... adieu.  I must investigate paint colors now!!!

Que Rico!

Today I had the best sandwich of my life. No joke. If you haven't checked out Cafecito in the Loop... run, don't walk!  I had the Pollo Chipotle sandwich, but their Cubano was voted the best in the city.  They also have good coffee.  And best yet, it's right near school!  So now I can eat somewhere other than Chipotle and Potbelly's on the days I don't pack a lunch.  Score!

Fun times

My friend Jen has a backyard where Jasper and Lola can run wild and find stinky things to eat and roll around in the dirt.  Lola likes to hide out in the "jungle" plants and wait for Jasper to notice her.

We are staying with Jen until we find a more permanent home- which may not be long because we put an offer on a house this week!

It's a little blurry, but you can probably tell that it has a lot of potential charm.  It's in the best condition of any home we've seen at our price point, and it's in a neighborhood that we love!  Since it is a short sale, there is no guarantee that the bank will accept our offer (they do not counter offer on short sales) so there is a chance that we will not get the house, but if we do, I have big plans for it.  Here's to hoping for the very best!

The Waiting is the Hardest Part!

Oh, Tom, how true are those words.  I've never thought of myself as a remarkably patient person, but lately circumstances demand me to dig down to the deepest recesses of my psyche to calm down and stop being so darn anxious for everything to happen NOW!  Since the fiasco with our neighbor, we've settled on looking at houses instead of apartments because we are lucky to have (an albeit small) portion of cash and are highly motivated by the "buyers' market" and the fantasy of never having to share a home with (crazy!) strangers again.  I often interpret a seemingly coordinated series of events as being a gentle nudge by the universe toward a particular end, and we are hoping this time to make our dream of living in a house happen! 

We've been exploring our options and hope to get pre-approved this week, and hope even more to find a small, affordable house that we can quickly move into. One neighborhood that's been catching our eye is Chicago's Irving Park neighborhood, which seems to be abundance of affordable single-family homes for sale.

So what can $100,000 get you in Chicago?  Check it out...

 www.dreamtown.com

 Nothing grand, but we're not looking for a palace... just a nice cozy place to call our own!  Here's hoping and praying we quickly find something suitable we can afford.

Something's in the Air!

And it's a.... tornado.  Or at least that's what the sirens tonight indicated.  I feel a strange mix of terror and excitement every time there is a tornado watch, and the scales tip more toward the terror side if the watch becomes a warning.  If I had been home alone and watching the television, I may have been a bit (unnecessarily) panicky, but as it happened I was at work, where there's a basement and a plethora of exceedingly laid-back people to discourage you from overreacting and making a fool of yourself.  By the time I was finished working, the storms had passed, but the sky was still quite ominous, so I snapped these pictures.  

The clouds were literally green- I'd always heard of how the sky looks green when a tornado is imminent (or in this case just passed) but I never knew what it looked like until tonight.

Can you see the Sears Tower waaay in the distance?  It was struck by lightening tonight.

Then I saw the most beautiful rainbow.  Sadly, there was no pot of gold at the end of it.

To Be Continued.....

My search for a new apartment has not produced any results thus far, but I have only been looking for a few days, so I know the pressure I feel is a side-effect of being an impossibly impatient person.  I've fallen in love with two places so far, one in N Lincoln Square that someone else rented today, and another which I've not heard anything back on.  I know it's only been a short while, but being without hubby and fuzzy love bugs makes time feel much, much longer.  

I mean, look at those faces!

I Just Died Today...

No, I really did.  I sang the final duet from Rigoletto, in which Gilda dies in her father's arms, for a performance this evening. (You can watch it by clicking here.) Though the baritone with whom I was singing put me to shame with his marvelous instrument, (thank you, Ghibong!) overall the performance was a success for me.  Being under massive amounts of stress can have quite a negative impact on one's voice, so I was pleased with how I sang despite the *slight* chaos life seems to be providing right now.  There was a time once when that would not have been true....

I really do enjoy a good reason to dress up, and tonight was one of those fun times!  The dress I wore was a thrifty-store find, which I bought on a NINETY-CENT special.  Yes, $.90.  Really.  I covered my shoulders with a piece of black lace from the fabric store and tied a silk black belt to make it look super fancy.  

 I even found some beautiful turquoise earrings for a little pop of color.  Oh, and because I've decided that turquoise is my lucky color. 

Aren't they lovely?

I can see many a successful performance in these earrings' future.  Can't you?

What a Difference a Day Makes

One day you're living your life, minding your own business, so content with the blessings you've been given, just trying to be a good person and working hard every day, striving toward achieving all you hope for in life.  And the next?  You wake up to the pounds of four armed police officers at your door forced to defend yourself against wild accusations that your husband is beating you, threatening your neighbor's life and is a violent, dangerous man.  Your demented neighbor is convinced she has heard screaming coming from your home, screams that involve mortal threats made against her (and her dog) and has found a random stranger to confirm her claims in the presence of the police.  You fumble for words (it is before your essential morning cup of coffee afterall, so your neurons aren't exactly firing at a world-record pace), and at the same time you feel you are watching the scene unfold upon someone else... 

Could this be the plot of a Lifetime Original Movie?  Certainly.  But it is also the exact situation M and I found ourselves in yesterday morning.  We were blindsided by everything that occurred, for as far as we knew, we were living above a pesky yet harmless woman who was just a little too sensitive.  But now we are both convinced that Nancy has had a complete break from reality and may be suffering from a serious mental disorder.  She not only called the police after claiming to have heard me scream for help (M and I were both sound asleep) but many of the nights in question, on which she claims to have heard everything from "Nancy, help me!" to "M has a gun!" we were not even in the apartment.  Some of my other "favorite" false accusations made against my hubby:  My yelling to M (referring to Nancy)  "You're going to kill her and her dog over it?!"  and how every time she turns on the water or her alarm goes off M pounds and screams because of the noise.  How DOES one respond to someone who is telling YOU this is what YOU did because SHE heard you do it?  Utter disbelief numbs the tongue. We are now faced with the disappointing reality that we simply must move AGAIN.  And we just love our place right now.  From the moment I saw it, I could picture ourselves living in it, and every day since I've sworn we wouldn't be leaving until we bought a house.  Everything here seems set up just to accommodate our needs, and it's hard to imagine we'll be so lucky searching for a new place in a bind.  Here's a little tribute to my home, the little things I'll really miss:

My taupe walls.  They make everything look gorgeous.

My pretty family photo wall- the long hallway was the perfect spot for it.

Watching Jasper and Lola run down the long hallway, fly into the couch to bounce off and run back up the hallway again.  Or watching Lola timidly creep into the darkness beyond to get a drink of water.

(Having a hallway really makes a big difference!)

The way this apartment seemed to have just the right spot for everything we have.  It's the first place that we've comfortably fit our books and furniture into, and it truly felt like home.

 

Even our monstrosity of a couch fit beautifully into the spacious living room.

It may be we will find another space that works so perfectly for us and feels just as cozy, but not all apartments can feel like home, much as you try to personalize them.  So it is with a very sad heart that I leave 4615 N Rockwell and maybe Lincoln Square altogether.  Time to search for the next best thing!